


Give Up

by roachprince



Series: kindness won't save anyone: asw inspired [6]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Begging, Blowjobs, College AU, M/M, Organized Crime AU, Parent Death, Somewhat Rough Sex, both. both is good, brief dom/sub undertones, huge-ass AU oneshot, hyungwon has emotional constipation, i wrote this in 3 days rip, i'm actually really sorry i left out rap line, rival clan bosses' sons, rivals with benefits to lovers, side kiho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 12:02:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11600241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachprince/pseuds/roachprince
Summary: Hyungwon's and Minhyuk's college years don't go quite as they expected.When they meet again years later, they're forced to realize that absence does make the heart grow fonder.





	Give Up

**Author's Note:**

> insp:   
>  _Our love was doomed, / a burning building, / a broken neck.  
>  But nothing since / you and me  
> even feels like love.  
> [(I spend all my time in puddles. I miss the ocean.)](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=908)_

Minhyuk is forbidden the second he is introduced to Hyungwon. He’s still young, a teenager, and his parents mention him in passing because there’s a picture of Minhyuk with his family in the papers. They donated a generous amount to children in need, which makes Hyungwon’s parents laugh, although Hyungwon thinks it’s pretty nice, all things considered. Maybe they’re as much a gang of criminals as his own family is, but money is money, and the kids probably needed it.

His mother points to the boy with the sharp, high cheekbones and the kittenish smile and tells Hyungwon that they have a son that’s roughly about his age, and he better steer clear of him if he ever sees him around. Hyungwon is in that age when the teens start to spend half their night outside and his parents probably think he might meet him in some sort of club. Hyungwon usually just meets up with Hoseok and falls asleep in his bed.

  


They end up going to the same college. Hyungwon doesn’t know if their parents know. He sees Minhyuk on his first day in finance class and thinks that he hasn’t really changed at all. He’s grown taller, and maybe a little bit thinner, but he still looks healthy, not as bony as Hyungwon is underneath his clothes. (He’s been trying to gain weight -- Hoseok even tried to help him build some muscle -- it just doesn’t come easy to him.) But Minhyuk still has those cheekbones that make him look exquisite, a word Hyungwon didn’t dare use for boys when he was sixteen, but he doesn’t care now. He still has those eyes that always make it seem like he’s up to mischief, and this slightly curved mouth that usually just helps the image.

Minhyuk doesn’t seem to know him. He catches Hyungwon’s gazes sometimes and quirks both an eyebrow and his lips at him, flirting. Yeah, Hyungwon knows a flirt when he sees one. And Minhyuk is shameless, throwing him raunchy looks and deepthroating his lunch in front of him, inching closer every week until they sit next to each other in class, his knee bumping into Hyungwon’s unnecessarily often.

So when Minhyuk asks Hyungwon for help with their homework even though both of them are hilariously bad at finance and it ends with Minhyuk fucking him on his desk, Hyungwon isn’t surprised.

Oh, he knows he’s supposed to _steer clear_ of him. But what did surprise him was that Minhyuk lives in a college dorm room, and that’s far away from either of their parents, and how are they going to find out? Hyungwon isn’t going to tell them, and he highly doubts that Minhyuk will. Besides, they’re exchanging bodily fluids, not family secrets. Who cares.

They exchange handjobs in the restroom behind the business building a week later. After Hyungwon has meticulously cleaned his hand, Minhyuk grabs it and scrawls a number on the back of it, telling him to call or text if he feels like doing this again and they don’t happen to have finance homework they don’t get. Hyungwon hears him leave while he’s still looking down at the black ink on his hand, wondering who the hell still writes numbers on skin when he could have just dictated it for Hyungwon to put it directly in his phone.

He goes home to the apartment his parents are paying for, to Hoseok waiting for him on the couch. Having his best friend as a flatmate has been lifting his mood considerably, making it way easier to be away from his parents like this, even if they stop by at least weekly. Especially because at least Hoseok cleans now and then.

Hyungwon drops down next to him on the couch and starts typing the number into his phone, his thumbs hovering over the still otherwise empty contact form afterwards. Hoseok was leaning in curiously from the start.

“Whose is that?” he finally asks.

“Lee Minhyuk’s,” Hyungwon says quietly. He frowns, looking up at Hoseok, their faces a little too close. “I shouldn’t do this, should I?”

Hoseok considers this for a few seconds, then raises his shoulders in a slow shrug. “You said the sex was good,” he says, and Hyungwon remembers what the hard wood of Minhyuk’s desk top did to his spine, how he was pretty sure a pen was stabbing him right between the ribs and he got a papercut on his arm somehow, and how he still came so hard he spilled almost all the way up to his own chin. He nods indifferently. “We’re college students now. What else is important?” Hoseok adds and they both snort. “You can still just act like you’re doing this to get information out of him, if that eases your conscience any. You’re still sure that’s not what _he’s_ doing, right?”

Hyungwon is sure. Minhyuk doesn’t figure out who he is until about a month later.

  


Minhyuk is still panting, lying on his stomach on the twin bed in his dorm room, Hyungwon on his side next to him, watching him quietly. He rode Hyungwon for the first time today, and still looks inappropriately proud of it, like he’s expecting someone to barge in and hand him a prize any minute. Hyungwon knows he’s not exactly small, down in those sticky boxers he put back on right afterwards, but he’s never fucked anyone who made such a big deal of it.

Minhyuk turns his head a bit and smiles up at Hyungwon, tired but still bright, and Hyungwon fears they’re going to be talking about his penis _again._ Instead, Minhyuk says, “You’re that kid from the Chae clan, aren’t you?”

Hyungwon huffs quietly. He has never exactly enjoyed being addressed like that. “Took you long enough,” he says.

He waits for something to happen, for Minhyuk to kick him out, tell him that their little thing is over. Ask him if he’s been using him somehow, if this was all some sort of ploy, waits for Minhyuk to shove him off the bed and end this, threaten him, anything. Minhyuk smiles a little wider and says, “Another round?”

“Sure,” says Hyungwon.

  


They don’t talk about it again. The next time Minhyuk texts Hyungwon and asks to meet up, Hyungwon almost expects it, but it doesn’t come. Minhyuk doesn’t say anything about his own family and doesn’t ask about Hyungwon’s, and Hyungwon does the same in return. In here, in Minhyuk’s bed or on his floor that always gives Hyungwon carpet burn, or in the college restrooms, they aren’t their fathers’ sons. They’re just people going to class and living a certain kind of college experience, and it has nothing to do with anything else, with their families or how they grew up. Minhyuk doesn’t ask, and Hyungwon doesn’t ask.

Still, there’s a barrier between them. Whatever they have, it’s just sex and it stays that way. They don’t pretend to help each other with homework anymore because they just wouldn’t fucking do that, Hyungwon would see hell freeze over before he would actually help Minhyuk with anything, and Minhyuk would rather shoot himself in the foot than ask for it. They decidedly refuse to talk about the family business, but they’re not children anymore, and they know it would be stupid and pointless to befriend each other. One day, when the reins get carried over to them, they’re going to be rivals. They’re old enough to know that, and smart enough to keep it simple for exactly this sake, keep it devoid of emotion so they’ll only use each other for good orgasms, and that’s about it.

It makes for good banter, at least. Minhyuk likes to jokingly complain about Hyungwon being a “pillow princess” and never doing anything useful, and Hyungwon likes to pretend like Minhyuk’s dick is so small he can barely feel it in his ass, which is far from true. Whenever Minhyuk raves on about Hyungwon’s lips and how amazing they’d look wrapped around a cock, Hyungwon just smiles and shrugs, because he hasn’t sucked him off a single time so far and he doesn’t plan on ever doing it, only because he knows it frustrates Minhyuk. Both of them are starting to get better in class because they’re trying to outdo each other, and sometimes, Hyungwon feels like even Hoseok, as his best friend, has a competition going on with Minhyuk’s best friend Hyunwoo to see who can bench press more by the end of the semester.

It’s fun. Hyungwon likes it. Makes him feel less bad about betraying his parents’ trust and going directly against their order of steering clear of this kid, while still keeping things harmless enough. He has no urge to actually hurt Minhyuk, and Minhyuk seems to be thinking similarly. It’s just a bit of rivalry, without the gunfire and ransom notes their parents like to engage in.

  


Hyungwon never invites Minhyuk to his apartment. It feels unsafe, like they’re just setting themselves up for an ugly rom-com situation where his parents barge in while he’s on the couch making out with the kid that’s off-limits. Minhyuk doesn’t seem to mind much; they’re not close or personal with each other after all, and he never asks to see Hyungwon’s place. He only gets close once.

Hyungwon feels spent and sensitive, and he’s too lazy to roll off of Minhyuk. They’re on Minhyuk’s bed at least so his knees aren’t suffering that much, and he’s kind of grown to like the feeling of Minhyuk’s dick softening in his ass, so he just kind of flopped down to lie on Minhyuk. It’s not cuddling; if you ask him, it’s not. They’re not _doing_ anything. Hyungwon is just putting all his weight on Minhyuk’s chest and pressing his face into the mattress next to his head, that’s not cuddling.

“Hey, Hyungwon,” Minhyuk says into the silence that their calming breaths have left. “Where the hell do you live?”

Frowning against the damp bedspread, Hyungwon only shifts his head far enough to make sure Minhyuk can understand what he’s saying. “Why d’you wanna know?”

“Because I wanna send you a mail bomb,” Minhyuk says dryly and swats Hyungwon’s naked thigh. “I’m just curious. I only ever see you here.”

“I share an apartment with Hoseok, in the city,” Hyungwon says, not without pressing his icy cold feet against Minhyuk’s legs, making him jump and shift awkwardly inside him, but it was worth it. “My parents are paying for it.”

“Wanted you to move out for college but didn’t want you to live here in the dorms like the rest of us scum?” Minhyuk says. Hyungwon can tell that he’s joking, he knows the nuances of his voice well enough by now, but he still pushes himself up on his elbows to glare at him.

“Why would I _want_ to move into a shitty run-down dorm room when we can afford a nice place to share with my best friend?” he barks, less venom behind it than he planned, because he’s still tired. Hyungwon just drops back down after that. “I agree that you’re scum, though.”

Minhyuk chuckles. His hands are roaming up Hyungwon’s ass towards his back now, and that’s weirdly close to cuddling, but Hyungwon hopes he’s just trying to initiate a second round. “My parents supported me moving here, so I get to see what other people live like, normal people. So I have to deal with noisy neighbors and share my shower with someone without resorting to murder all the time. I think it’s pretty nice here, actually. I’ve made a lot of friends.”

“Okay,” Hyungwon says. This time he’s glad for the exhaustion in his voice because it hides that he might be a little bit jealous. His parents always tried to keep him sealed off from the rest of the world to a certain degree, and what Minhyuk said about them not wanting him to live here like normal people hit a little close to home. “I didn’t ask.”

  


Throughout his first year of college, Hyungwon barely sleeps with anyone else. He does, now and then, but it’s more to prove something to himself and less for actual pleasure. He and Minhyuk never said anything about being exclusive and Hyungwon finds hickies on Minhyuk’s skin often enough to know _he_ fucks other people (he thinks it might be Hyunwoo). Hyungwon himself isn’t exactly social and doesn’t really need sex every day either, so picking someone up is usually exhausting and rare, but he still tells himself he needs it. Anything to make his thing with Minhyuk seem less like a relationship, even if that relationship would only be something like _rivals with benefits._ Hyungwon dreads to give the beast a label, so he doesn’t.

Still, after their first big summer break they return to college for year two, and they both made it into the follow-up class for that finance module, and Hyungwon has barely sunken down on a chair when he catches Minhyuk making bedroom eyes at him across the room.

They fall right back into each other.

  


Halfway into his third semester, Hyungwon’s father dies of a stroke.

It’s just like that; quick, sudden, pointless. His mother comes to his apartment to tell him personally because she couldn’t do it over the phone, and cries into Hyungwon’s sweater while Hyungwon stares at a wall. The world feels surreal, sort of like a movie, but one that’s playing in another tab with the sound turned almost all the way down.

He had always considered two possibilities: his father dying fat and bald on an island in the Caribbean, old and rich and no longer into the business because he’d be ninety years old and happy since he bought an enormous house there for himself and his wife and maybe a dog or two; or his father dying young in a blaze of gunfire, going down shooting at enemies or cops or whoever else was stupid enough to take it up with his gang.

His mother says they were playing tennis on a public court and he just collapsed out of nowhere, and that was that.

Losing him like this doesn’t seem to make sense.

  


Hyungwon doesn’t cry at the funeral. His mother does, of course, and Hoseok cries a bit too. A week before, they asked Hyungwon to say a few words on the occasion, but he declined. He doesn’t know what to say. He wasn’t extremely close with his father, but he loved him, and things feel distant and weird since he’s gone. People in the gang don’t seem to know how to deal with it either. There’s no one to let their anger out on, no one responsible for this. They can’t avenge him because nobody killed him, and somehow nobody saw that possibility coming. The funeral is quiet and helpless, at a loss for words or actions.

His mother’s friends take her home. Hyungwon sends Hoseok home too and stays behind alone, hands in his pockets, staring at the tombstone, big and expensive and shiny for no reason.

Fifteen minutes later his feet are hurting but he can’t bring them to move, and when someone shows up next to him, he doesn’t even flinch. Minhyuk has recently bleached his hair, making him look even younger as it falls into his eyes; Hyungwon would recognize that anywhere, even from the corner of his eye. He’s wearing all black, at least.

“I won’t say anything about your late father,” Minhyuk announces, his voice too loud for a graveyard. “I’m not that disrespectful. But I will say that you look ridiculous in this suit. Like one of those black-bean noodles.”

Hyungwon wants to grit his teeth, ball his hands into fists in his pockets, but he sighs instead. “Did you really come to my father’s funeral to make fun of me?”

“Well, when you put it like that you make me sound like an asshole.”

“How the fuck else am I supposed to put it?”

Minhyuk remains silent for a few seconds, bobbing on his toes a bit. When Hyungwon turns his head to look at him, Minhyuk is regarding the grave with a frown. “I thought I might,” he says slowly, “bring some balance. Into things. I know everything slides out of perspective when this kind of stuff happens, and sometimes it’s nice to have… you know, something normal. Making fun of you is the only normal thing I can do for you. Except for, I guess, sex, but I don’t wanna do that on a graveyard--”

“What do _you_ know about this?” Hyungwon says loudly, rolling his eyes so hard it hurts his heavy head a little. He’s really had enough of Minhyuk talking, he thinks.

“Look, I realize my parents are still alive,” Minhyuk says, so calm it’s pissing him off, “but that doesn’t mean I’ve never lost anyone.” He looks at him then, and they exchange a gaze, silent, more serious than anything they’ve ever talked about. Hyungwon doesn’t know who Minhyuk could have lost, aunts or uncles maybe, even friends, and he’s not going to ask. He knows Minhyuk doesn’t expect him to. But it is strangely soothing to know that he might actually vaguely know how this feels.

That he’s not alone.

Hyungwon sniffs and looks away again, picking at his expensive black jacket. “It’s a good suit, you philistine,” he says. His gaze travels over the place, wide and trimmed and empty. “Where’re your folks? They here?”

“They’re waiting in the car,” Minhyuk says softly.

“Waiting?”

“For me to come back and tell them your people are gone, so they can come here and pay their respects. They didn’t want to disturb. It’s supposed to be a quiet day for you guys.”

Hyungwon snorts. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Minhyuk says and shifts on his feet. “I’ll just tell them I had to wait around a little until everyone was gone. I don’t think they’re ready to know about us just yet.”

“Implying they’ll ever be ready?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. My parents are pretty chill, all things considered.”

“Minhyuk,” Hyungwon says, “all we do is fuck in your dorm room. That’s not something you share with your parents. Even if they’re perfectly normal citizens.”

Minhyuk stays quiet for an awkwardly long time, so long Hyungwon almost regrets having said anything at all. “I guess,” he says then. Nothing else.

He stays with Hyungwon for a few more minutes, both of them silent this time, until Hyungwon spontaneously decides to pat him on the back, hates himself for it immediately afterwards, and turns to leave with a “See you in class.”

“See you,” Minhyuk calls after him. Hyungwon doesn’t turn around. He thinks he was right, though. Things do seem more balanced now.

  


Hyungwon misses one class, but attends the rest. He feels like he needs it; normalcy. He doesn’t want to stay home where his grieving mother might drop by any moment, and he doesn’t want to feel Hoseok’s pitying glances on his back. Nobody here knows that he lost his father, he’s not close enough to anyone for that. Except for Minhyuk.

He goes to class, and afterwards he grabs Minhyuk by the elbow and drags him off towards the restrooms, pushes him into a stall and up against the wall, makes out with him until he feels a bulge in Minhyuk’s pants press against his thigh, then he gets on his knees.

Minhyuk’s breath catches in his chest. Hyungwon is wrestling his belt open and tugging at his pants, and Minhyuk’s hands scramble against the ugly grey wall like he’s afraid he might fall through it otherwise. “Wait, are you,” he stammers, “a-are you gonna-- am I getting a blowjob?”

“Not if you don’t shut up you won’t,” Hyungwon says, and then he _hears_ Minhyuk’s mouth slam shut.

He’s half hard when Hyungwon pulls him out of his boxers, cock twitching in his fingers just from being this close to his lips. Hyungwon wets them, watches his own hand go up over Minhyuk’s length once, twice, then he leans forwards to lick a wet stripe from base to tip. The second he wraps his lips around the head, he can hear Minhyuk’s head drop back against the wall with a weak groan, and immediately feels better.

Hyungwon breathes in through his nose, relaxes first his mouth, then his throat, then he dives down with one single movement of his head, taking him whole until the tip of his nose is touching the patch of wiry pubic hair above it. “Oh, my god,” Minhyuk says above him, and there’s a slapping noise afterwards that leaves Hyungwon to assume he clapped a hand over his mouth. Hyungwon stays until he can’t anymore, hands on Minhyuk’s thighs, lips tight around him, even when he moves his head back again. He pulls off only to take a deep breath, doesn’t leave Minhyuk any time to react before he goes back in, hollowing out his cheeks this time to start bobbing his head in slow, long thrusts.

Minhyuk’s other hand ends up in Hyungwon’s hair. Hyungwon barely notices at first, too focused on the task at hand, but he moans softly around Minhyuk’s cock heavy on his flat tongue as soon as he realizes. Minhyuk doesn’t tug harshly, doesn’t hurt him, but there’s a gentle push and pull whenever Hyungwon moves his head, like he’s not trying to dictate his movement exactly, but just encouraging it.

By now Hyungwon is sure enough that Minhyuk won’t turn out to be an asshole and start thrusting forwards unannounced, so he takes his hands off Minhyuk’s thighs and makes quick work of his own pants instead. He groans deeply around Minhyuk as soon as he manages to shove a hand down his boxers, his own cock hard and throbbing in his palm.

Soon he’s jerking himself off with quick, sloppy tugs, and he doubts Minhyuk even notices with how busy he is chasing his own bliss. Minhyuk announces himself non-verbally with a harder tug on Hyungwon’s hair, so Hyungwon stills his head, but not his hand, fucking himself through warm spurts of cum hitting the back of his throat.

He pulls back panting, almost laughs when he realizes that Minhyuk is downright _wheezing,_ swallows loudly and reaches to the side to grab a handful of toilet paper. Hyungwon hates post-sex stickiness, but he really did bring this one upon himself.

“Do you-- oh,” Minhyuk says above him, voice raspy, and he looks a little lost and confused now, blinking down at Hyungwon. Hyungwon understands that he was about to ask if he wants him to return the favor, because Minhyuk would do that, he’s fair like that, but Hyungwon is already cleaning his own stuff off his hands.

“No need,” he says and clears his throat right afterwards. He sounded even more hoarse than Minhyuk, and it’s the only thing keeping him from whining when he pushes himself back on his feet and his knees crack audibly. Hyungwon tucks himself back into his pants, closes them up and disposes of the dirtied toilet paper, then he turns towards the stall door. He’s about to leave Minhyuk with their usual, casual goodbye, when Minhyuk grabs his shoulder.

The touch is featherlight, fleeting, gone again almost the second it was even there, but Hyungwon stills and stares at him. Minhyuk’s cheeks are still flushed, pupils blown and lips bitten raw, but his brows are furrowed in worry, and Hyungwon gets the wild urge to punch it right off his face.

“Hyungwon,” he says quietly, and swallows. “Are you alright?”

Hyungwon sets his jaw and reaches out towards the door handle. He knows his answer isn’t going to sound convincing, so the least he can do is make obvious that he’s not going to talk about it.

“Yes,” he says, and leaves.

  


In case of his father’s early passing, the plan was to leave the family business to Hyungwon’s mother. She could do it, has been making important decisions by his father’s side for years, knows the business inside and out. People know and trust her, ready to pave the way for her in trying times like these.

But it doesn’t work out.

Nobody says it, but Hyungwon knows it’s the grief. She falls ill all the time, barely able to stay on her feet on her own by the end of the year. Hyungwon doesn’t see her cry often, but her eyes are always bloodshot, often empty and staring. One day one of his father’s old confidants pulls him aside and quietly tells him that he should consider “getting help” for her. Hyungwon doesn’t even know what kind of help he means. He asks his mother if she’s ever gone to see a grief counselor, maybe even a therapist, and she loses herself in a twenty minute rant about not trusting them which all boils down to one thing: she’s too proud.

She falls down the stairs in the house where Hyungwon grew up and breaks her arm while Hyungwon is on semester break. When Hyungwon visits her in the hospital, without meeting his eye, she tells him to hire someone who will take care of her in her home, because she can’t do it alone anymore. Hyungwon asks if there’s anyone in particular she’d want and she shakes her head and puts her good hand on Hyungwon’s arm and says, “It’s you who calls the shots now.”

  


So while struggling through his fourth semester, Hyungwon starts calling the shots. People are hesitant about his mother handing over the reins to a son who’s so young and scrawny, inexperienced in everything that isn’t business theory and known for mediocre grades even there, but nobody dares to speak up against the bloodline.

Hyungwon wishes someone would.

He doesn’t want to be doing this; not now, and maybe, not ever. Somewhere he always knew that people were going to expect it of him once both he and his parents would grow older, but he pushed it to the back of his mind every time it came up, and now he’s right in the middle of it. He doesn’t feel ready, feels like he knows absolutely nothing at all about the business and how to handle it, doesn’t know how he’s supposed to get anything done when he’s still trying to get a degree and get over his father’s death. Like people threw him in the middle of the ocean and just expect him to know how to survive.

Someone is always taking care of him, of course. People who used to work with his parents now work with him and explain all their work to him, and Hyungwon’s mother still teaches him all he has to know as well, but he’s still drowning. There’s barely time for anything between classes and family duty now, Hyungwon barely even gets to spend time in his own apartment. Sometimes he goes days without getting to see his best friend, and weeks without seeing Minhyuk outside of class. He’s almost glad about it, because he still can’t take the looks both of them keep throwing in his direction. He doesn’t want to be pitied. He wants to be left alone.

  


One day towards the end of their second year, Minhyuk texts him and asks to meet up, and Hyungwon says yes for the first time in a long time. When Minhyuk opens the door to his dorm room for Hyungwon, he doesn’t look as happy as Hyungwon thought, so maybe this was never about sex in the first place.

Minhyuk’s room still looks the exact same, save for the books flying around. Hyungwon doesn’t go inside much farther than he has to, staying with his back pressed against the door, watching Minhyuk walk a few more steps until he notices. Minhyuk turns around and looks at him with some grim sort of sorrow, so Hyungwon wrinkles his nose.

“I think,” Hyungwon says softly, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket, “this is over.”

For a few seconds, Minhyuk doesn’t say anything. He looks like he’s chewing on his tongue while Hyungwon watches him. “Dad said you lead the gang now,” he says then. “I didn’t even know.”

Hyungwon shrugs. “Sorry I never mentioned it in all our animated talks,” he says dryly. Minhyuk doesn’t seem to find it funny.

“What happened to your mother?”

“Nothing,” Hyungwon lies. “What do you want from me, Minhyuk?”

Minhyuk sighs. “Nothing,” he echoes. “I guess you’re right, then. I guess this is over.”

“I can’t be fucking the rival clan’s son, you know that.”

“You seemed to have no problem with it for the past two years.”

Hyungwon wants to tell him, yell at him even, that it hasn’t been a full two years and he better shut his stupid face, but he doesn’t. “That was different,” he just says. “I thought that much was clear. I’m in a higher position now, it’s too risky. The only way we could continue having sloppy second-class sex with each other is if one of us gave up, and I don’t think that’s really worth it, now, is it?”

Minhyuk looking slightly offended by that should make Hyungwon feel better, he thinks, but it doesn’t really. Minhyuk also looks very tired now, and yet that bit of sorrow is still there, right between his eyebrows, and that’s still pissing him off.

“Fine,” Minhyuk says, so quietly it’s barely even audible. “Whatever you want, then, boss man. See you around.” When Hyungwon just nods and turns towards the door, Minhyuk asks, “Have you eaten today, Hyungwon?”

But he just snorts and leaves without answering.

  


Hoseok does his best to make sure he eats. He helps Hyungwon through exams this semester and almost fails his own, something Hyungwon never would have forgiven himself for. During break, they both allow themselves two weeks off and go on vacation together, and the first night in a pretty hotel with nobody pestering him about classes or businesses, Hyungwon feels so relaxed he almost starts crying.

The night before they leave again, Hyungwon kisses Hoseok on the balcony. It’s chaste and tentative, and he pulls away again quickly, terror seeping into his shoulders for a brief second until Hoseok laughs.

“Love you too, bro,” he says and pats his shoulder. “You gotta get laid.”

He’s right, Hyungwon thinks, about both things. Hoseok loves him and Hyungwon loves him back, in a good and pure way that has nothing to do with romance or balcony kisses, but is just as important, if not more. And he really does need to get laid. He doesn’t… He doesn’t _miss_ Minhyuk, of course, but he hasn’t had any sex since him, when he’s really stressed and could probably use it.

So he uses his additional down time during break to visit some of those clubs that belong to his family, picks up a girl here, a boy there, tries to unwind.

He really does try. It’s just not as good as it used to be. It’s probably him, Hyungwon thinks. He’s too tense, his mind always somewhere else, always stressed. It’s him. It can’t be Minhyuk.

  


Coming back for his last year of college feels pointless to Hyungwon, but he does it anyway. A lot of things have been feeling pointless to him, and he did them anyway, so this just adds to the pile. He’s been majoring in business so he could one day take over after his father, but now that that’s already happened he doesn’t quite see why he has to keep this major and finish a degree in something he’s not even very good at.

Every few weeks or so, Hyungwon works up some courage and types his mother’s number into his phone, digit for digit even though he has it saved there, or sometimes he walks all the way to her house instead of taking the subway. He puts a reasonable order to the words in his head and he takes deep breaths and he almost says them out loud, every time. Every few weeks or so, he almost tells her that he wants to quit, he’s going to quit. He’s dropping out of college and he’s dropping out of the family business because he can’t do it, he’s bad at it and he hates it and he can think of so many more things that would make him happier, something he hasn’t been way too long. Someone else can take over. He doesn’t care. She can decide, if she wants to. He just wants out.

Every few weeks or so, Hyungwon almost quits.

  


He sees Minhyuk in class, every Tuesday. Minhyuk rarely looks at him now, which feels weird. No flirting across the room, no raunchy texts while their professor is talking. Hyungwon sits at the back and Minhyuk in the front and they don’t acknowledge each other. Minhyuk only stares at him afterwards, when they all file into the hallway and he can get a quick look at him without being too open with it, just to check if his color is alright, if he hasn’t been losing any more weight, if the shadows under his eyes have gotten any deeper. But Hyungwon never catches those looks.

  


He has his first good day in a while when Yoo Kihyun is introduced to him. Kihyun is a young man about his age, who’s been tirelessly working his way through the ranks of this clan and is bursting with both professionalism and pride. Hyungwon’s mother thinks that if they get along maybe Kihyun could one day be Hyungwon’s right hand man. Hyungwon thinks that for all he cares Kihyun could be all the hands in this hellhole and leave him completely out of it. Kihyun doesn’t say it, but Hyungwon gets the feeling that he thinks so, too.

Experimentally, Hyungwon leaves the reins to Kihyun while he himself prepares for his final exams. The result is that the clan runs almost as smooth as when his father was still around, and Hyungwon graduates college with grades that have both his mother and Hoseok sighing deeply, but at least he fucking graduates. Afterwards, Kihyun gives him a congratulatory hug and Hyungwon is startled less by the action itself and more by the sudden realization that he needed this, a lot, and hugs him back.

Kihyun spends more time with him from then on, taking the task of a right hand man very serious and eradicating every last fear Hyungwon had that he might just be trying to usurp his power. Kihyun comes to their apartment with tupper boxes full of food and makes sure he and Hoseok eat every last bite, then cleans up after them when both of them are still flopping around on the couch in food-comatose states. Hyungwon thinks he can see Hoseok fall in love a little bit more with every meal, and it’s cute, and it almost makes things feel normal, like they’re regular young adults, huddling together in the living room watching Netflix until three in the morning. At some point Kihyun stops sleeping over on their couch and starts sleeping over in Hoseok’s room, and Hyungwon doesn’t say anything about it, but he does send them a shit-eating grin when he walks in on them making out in the kitchen the next morning.

One day Hoseok comes home and says he met Hyunwoo, and that he told him Minhyuk is switching schools for his master’s program. He seems to wait for a reaction from Hyungwon, but Hyungwon just grunts once. He doesn’t care. Why would he care? Hyungwon isn’t going for a master’s degree at all, because his bachelor’s pissed him off enough already, and he doesn’t have the time anyway. He has a business to run, and he doesn’t give a shit what Minhyuk has been up to.

  


It’s months later that he finds out. The clan has been running okay; Hyungwon still tries to make his mother happy, but he often quits early and leaves the rest of the work to Kihyun, who takes it with no complaining, like he was made for it. Hyungwon is starting to think he was.

Right now, Kihyun is perched on Hoseok’s lap at the dinner table in their apartment -- Kihyun hasn’t officially moved in, but he’s here so often Hyungwon has more or less accepted him as a second flatmate. He’s scrolling through his phone while Hoseok is scratching the last bits of food out of his bowl and Hyungwon is just leaning back and staring into space, trying to recover from the meal, but Kihyun looks up eventually.

“Lee has cancer,” he says.

“Which Lee?” Hyungwon says.

Hoseok throws a glance towards Kihyun’s phone screen and wrinkles his nose before he looks at Hyungwon. “Minhyuk’s dad.”

“Oh,” Hyungwon just says.

“What kind of cancer?” Hoseok asks, squirming a little as he tries to get a better look at Kihyun’s phone, but Kihyun isn’t having it.

“Someone said throat, but they’re not sure. It’s probably ugly, though. Stop doing that, Hoseok, I swear to god.” Kihyun glares at him and Hoseok sinks back into his seat, and Hyungwon watches them both like a show on Discovery Channel, distant but somewhat interesting. “You guys went to college with Lee Minhyuk, right?”

“Yeah,” Hyungwon says quietly. He wonders how Minhyuk is taking it. Oh, he doesn’t care. He shouldn’t. Minhyuk has always been bright and positive, he’ll be alright, he doesn’t care. It’s gotta be a tough pill to swallow, but he’ll be fine. It’s none of Hyungwon’s business.

“Well,” Hoseok says and yanks him back to reality with a stupid grin, “Hyungwon did a little more than just go to college with him.”

Hyungwon kicks him under the table, but Hoseok just cocks a brow at him like he barely felt it. “Shut up,” he hisses. “That was nothing.”

By now Kihyun is watching him with huge eyes and a knowing smile already on his lips, and Hyungwon almost throws both of them out. Kihyun repositions himself on Hoseok’s lap, ignoring the groan that pulls from him, and leans over the table a little bit. “Spill, Hyungwon,” he purrs.

“No,” Hyungwon says. He knows it’s for nothing, he knows Kihyun will find out either way, but he can at least save his dignity for another two seconds.

“Oh, come on,” Hoseok chortles behind Kihyun, starting to look like he’s using him as a shield in case Hyungwon decides to shoot him for this. “They fucked regularly, and I mean, like, at least once a week, for almost four semesters.”

“It was _not_ that often!”

“It was, sometimes. And you got insufferable when you had to take longer breaks. Kiki, I swear, one time he got drunk and spent the _whole_ night whining at me about how good Minhyuk is with his hips. Sometimes I still hear him in my nightmares.”

 _“Boy,”_ Kihyun says slowly, his lips enunciating the word so exaggeratedly Hyungwon almost punches his face in. “An affair with the enemy. Juicy.”

“We were just kids,” Hyungwon mumbles. “I wasn’t even close to a leading position back then, and Minhyuk’s dad was still alright, too. For once, it had nothing to do with politics.”

And maybe, Hyungwon thinks, it’s not so bad that Kihyun has noticed by now how much the family business burdens Hyungwon, how exasperated he is with it all, because his words make Kihyun quiet down and lean back against Hoseok’s chest again. Hoseok’s head peeks up over Kihyun’s shoulder and he sends Hyungwon an apologetic glance before looking at Kihyun again.

“Is Minhyuk gonna take over, then?” Hoseok asks softly. “Or is his mom next in line?”

“His mother isn’t directly affiliated with the business,” Kihyun says, looking back at his phone now. Hyungwon thinks the fact that he had no idea says a lot both about his relationship to Minhyuk and his lack of motivation for the whole clan deal. “Minhyuk will be inching closer to the top now, but he’ll still work with his dad’s assistant. That one might actually call most of the shots, I think.”

“Good to know,” Hyungwon says, but doesn’t mean it. He wishes he didn’t have to care about this.

That same day, Hyungwon tip-toes around Kihyun and uses his own connections to find out what hospital Minhyuk’s father is in. He takes the subway there and walks in, almost gets as far as asking where he could find the man, then he walks back out. He walks in a second time, feels the receptionist’s suspicious eyes on him, and walks back out.

He can’t do it.

Minhyuk came to his father’s funeral because he’s nice and weirdly gentle, but Hyungwon can’t do this. He wouldn’t know what to say, what to do. He hasn’t exchanged a word with Minhyuk in well over a year.

Hyungwon has his head pulled in between his shoulders, hands buried deep inside his pockets, waiting at a bus stop across the street, having given up eventually. He’s still staring at the hospital entrance, sickness dancing in his stomach and making cold shivers run down his spine, when Minhyuk walks out.

He still has a full head of platinum blond hair. Hyungwon almost smiles at the sight. Then their eyes meet.

Minhyuk stops dead in his tracks, staring at him. There’s a brief twitch in his knees, barely noticeable, like his body wants him to walk over here and say hi. Hyungwon prays that he doesn’t, but he also wrestles one hand out of his pants pocket to wave at Minhyuk before he can stop himself. It’s a weak gesture, slow and everything but enthusiastic, but Hyungwon just wants to let him know that he’s heard about his dad, and that he’s sorry. He doesn’t know how a simple wave could convey that, but he hopes it does somehow.

After another second, Minhyuk’s face breaks into a smile, a weary one maybe, but a smile nonetheless. He nods at him, slowly and -- maybe Hyungwon is imagining this, but he doesn’t think he is -- understanding, then he turns and walks off towards the visitor’s parking lot.

  


He sees him again sooner than anticipated. There have been numerous overlaps in their drug turfs, a part of the city that’s used by both of them and not properly divided up, so dealers from both gangs have been getting into arguments, some of them ending ugly. It’s not exactly anyone’s fault, really, a case of sloppy distribution on both sides, so they decide to meet up and talk about it, friendly and unarmed.

Hyungwon lets Kihyun do most of the talking. Minhyuk is a little more involved, even if it’s obvious that his father’s old assistant really does still have a lot of power. It’s dizzying to Hyungwon; he’s used to Minhyuk being loud and cheeky, babbling during class, always sounding like he’s talking bullshit even if he said something smart. It was either that or pillow talk, and none of that came close to how Minhyuk speaks in the office they’re sitting in. He’s calm and collected but not monotonous, professional in a way that makes him seem so aloof that Hyungwon almost worries Kihyun might fold under it.

It’s kind of hot.

Kihyun doesn’t fold, of course. He stays on top, discussing himself through every matter with confidence until even Hyungwon can detect the slightest hints of impression on their rivals’ faces. He still avoids Minhyuk’s gaze, though, hoping to just slip out at the end of this all without having to talk to him directly.

Of course, that doesn’t work out. They’re all polite enough to shake hands once they’re done, and while Hyungwon is still looking anywhere but into Minhyuk’s eyes, Minhyuk pulls off a smooth drug dealer move and leaves a piece of paper in Hyungwon’s hand when he shakes it. Startled, Hyungwon stares at it, realizes it’s a time and a place scrawled on the back of a business card, before he remembers to tuck it away quickly so he can shake the next damn hand.

Kihyun stares at it skeptically once they’re in the car and Hyungwon has shown him the card. They googled the address and it’s a hotel, and apparently Minhyuk wants to meet up in an hour, but probably only with Hyungwon, since he kept it on the down low like that. “I don’t know,” Kihyun says, dragging the words out suspiciously. “What if he just wants to lynch you?”

“Why would he?” Hyungwon says, turning the card over and over between his fingers. “We’re not at war or anything, right? Killing me would ruin the calm atmosphere we just created, stuff like that?”

“You know, sometimes I almost think you know what you’re talking about,” Kihyun says. He pats Hyungwon’s back and shrugs. “You’re right, though, yeah. So far they haven’t seemed like they’re trying to initiate a gang war, so it’d be stupid to lure you somewhere and kill you. I’m still not sure if you should go there alone, though.”

Hyungwon sighs. “Kihyun,” he says, “I think he just wants to fuck.”

“Well, I’m not accompanying you to _that.”_

  


He gets Kihyun convinced, and then he gets himself convinced. When Hyungwon knocks on the door to the hotel room written on the card, the nervous pull in his stomach doesn’t stem from fear of being killed, but from having to look at Minhyuk again, actually speak to him this time, actually acknowledge that they know each other, or at least they used to.

When Minhyuk swings the door open and smiles at him so wide it makes his eyes crinkle, Hyungwon’s first thought is _I missed you,_ and he almost turns on his heels and runs off again. “Hi,” Minhyuk says, with his normal voice, not his calm and collected office voice, and steps aside. “Come in. Thanks for trusting me enough to come here.” As Hyungwon walks past him, Minhyuk’s gaze flickers over him, and he huffs a laugh and nods towards the gun holster on Hyungwon’s hip. “Though I guess I can’t blame you for that.”

Hyungwon just gives a weary smile; Minhyuk looks unarmed, but Hyungwon has already spotted his own holsters lying over an arm chair in the room, so that’s fair.

Before he can say anything, Minhyuk closes the door and says, “How are you holding up? I see your clan is doing well, so congrats to that, but, you know… How about you?”

 _I missed you,_ Hyungwon thinks again, watching Minhyuk walk further into the room as he talks, watching him scour Hyungwon’s face for answers. _I missed how openly you care._

“I’m okay,” he says, and he thinks that might be one of the most honest things he’s ever said to Minhyuk. He won’t pretend like everything is going perfect, not when he’s in here already and won’t be leaving immediately, there would be no point in lying to Minhyuk so blatantly. But he is okay, he thinks. Things have gotten better since college ended and Kihyun showed up. He’s okay. He just missed him and his stupid questions. Hyungwon puts his hands in his pockets and tilts his head a little. “How’s your father doing?” he asks quietly.

Minhyuk huffs out a laugh that sounds incredulous that Hyungwon would ask in the first place, but mostly it just sounds desperate. “Terribly, usually,” he says. Hyungwon can see the smile on his lips and the pain in his eyes. “But at least he’s still around. Physically.”

Something hurts inside his chest, now that he can see on Minhyuk’s face the same things he used to feel about his own father. Hyungwon feels himself take a step towards Minhyuk without really knowing what for; he almost surges forward and hugs him, but it doesn’t happen. “I’m sorry, Minhyuk,” he says instead, and at least that’s the truth. Minhyuk smiles and swallows and looks up at him and Hyungwon thinks that he looks better than Hyungwon used to, and the family business runs smoother than theirs used to, and he supposes if you’re the nice, warm kind of family that raises a kid like Minhyuk, hardships are a little easier to take.

“Thanks,” Minhyuk says.

Silence spreads between them, and Hyungwon counts the seconds, watches Minhyuk’s face light up again _(one),_ watches him straighten his back and bite his lips _(two),_ look for the right words to change the topic to something lighter, more fun _(three),_ before Hyungwon decides to take it off his shoulders.

“So you just ordered me here to catch up?” he says, coming closer again, grinning right in Minhyuk’s face. “Or were you hoping to get some ass?”

The surprise ghosting over Minhyuk’s features doesn’t last long; instead he grins right back, teeth flashing in that mischievous way of his that always had Hyungwon a little weak in the knees. “Mostly the latter,” he admits, gaze flickering over Hyungwon’s eyes, searching for something. “Only if you want, though. I know you said… You know, nobody seems any closer to giving up and I don’t want you to think this is about business in any way, I really just thought--”

Hyungwon pulls his hands out of his pockets and puts them on Minhyuk’s chest instead, shoving him backwards so he crashes onto the bed. Minhyuk has no idea, he thinks, just how close he is to giving up, to giving the official title to Kihyun and ducking out completely, but he’s not here to tell him that. It’s not supposed to be about business, and Hyungwon might be down to sleep with the enemy, but he still won’t just up and tell him that he’s about to leave the clan. It’s a thought he will keep to himself for now, but one that’s still soothing in a way, and makes straddling Minhyuk’s hips on the soft hotel bed a lot easier. The way he gets rid of his gun holster and just drops it to the floor carelessly feels almost symbolic now.

“Who cares about business,” Hyungwon breathes, his fingers swiftly opening the buttons on Minhyuk’s white dress shirt so he can lean down and mouth along his jaw.

A fluttering sigh blows past Hyungwon’s hair when Minhyuk raises his hands and trails them over his thighs and up to his back. “I missed you,” he says.

Hyungwon stills. Suddenly his heart beats in his throat, his mind racing between staying right here and jumping off the bed to flee. Beneath him, Minhyuk has gone rigid too, like the words weren’t actually planned to come out. Hyungwon feels Minhyuk’s fingers twitch on his back, almost as if he’s fighting the same inner fight, but then Minhyuk grabs his shoulders and pushes Hyungwon up just far enough to kiss him, and he can work with that.

He still might have bailed if this had felt romantic in any sort of way, but Minhyuk’s lips are parted on his and he’s sliding one hand into Hyungwon’s hair now, grabbing a fistful to tilt his head as he licks into his mouth, and that’s better.

He gets a few more buttons of Minhyuk’s shirt open before he gives up and just fists his hands in the fabric instead. Pushing his tongue against Minhyuk’s, he slowly starts rutting his hips downwards too, knees sliding further apart on the bedspread so he can press himself down against him, pulling a strangled gasp from Minhyuk that goes straight to his dick. Minhyuk’s nails scratch against his scalp a little as he pulls one knee up between Hyungwon’s legs and Hyungwon grinds against that instead. Rubbing his clothed ass against a thigh doesn’t do much for the tension in his own pants, but he’s well aware that the movement alone is filthy enough to make the breath quiver in Minhyuk’s chest.

Eventually Minhyuk tightens his grip, both on his hair and his back, pulling a groan from Hyungwon that gets a little lost in the sudden movement of Minhyuk flipping them over to push Hyungwon into the mattress and slide in between his automatically spread legs. Minhyuk’s hands are on his shoulders now, pushing him down with gentle force and Hyungwon lets him, his own hands on the pillows next to his head. He stares up at Minhyuk and Minhyuk stares back down, and for a second Hyungwon thinks that whatever is on Minhyuk’s mind, he shouldn’t say it, shouldn’t say anything, keep this simple and shut the hell up for once, but as soon as Minhyuk opens his mouth he finds that he doesn’t really care.

“I admittedly haven’t been sleeping around as much as I’d like,” Minhyuk says while shoving Hyungwon’s shirt up from where it was tucked into his pants. “But the ones I’ve had? They were nothing like you.” He pushes the fabric further up his chest, fingers following, warm on Hyungwon’s cold skin, thumbs making him jump a little as they brush over his nipples. “Nobody’s quite like you,” Minhyuk breathes, pushing the shirt off completely and dropping it to the floor, eyes fixed back on Hyungwon already, watching him fall back against the pillows once the shirt is gone. He smiles. “So fucking pliant the second your back hits a mattress. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He trails his hands back down, over Hyungwon’s now naked chest over his hips to his thighs, grabbing them firmly to lift them up a little, rest them over Minhyuk’s own hips, then using them as leverage to slide Hyungwon down on the mattress a little, make him lie smack on the middle of the bed. Again, Hyungwon lets him, keeping eye contact, nothing else. “I could manhandle you around this bed as much as I like and you wouldn’t do anything about it.”

Minhyuk leans back down again and Hyungwon crosses his legs behind his back, subtly caging him in as much as Minhyuk is caging him in with his upper body now, his hands even sliding up Hyungwon’s arms to press his wrists into the mattress, a gentle threat that sends white hot electricity down to Hyungwon’s crotch. Once Minhyuk is close enough to kiss, Hyungwon lifts his head off the mattress and catches his lower lip between his teeth, sucking it into his mouth to bite at it, and Minhyuk is laughing softly when he releases it again.

“Oh, I know you could scratch my eyes out if you really wanted to,” he says quietly, and somewhere deeper down, where their lower bodies meet, Hyungwon can feel what the thought seems to do to Minhyuk. “You’re like a wild panther rolling over for belly rubs.”

Now it’s Hyungwon who laughs, breathy and short, but it’s there. Laughing on a bed with Minhyuk on top of him sends a different kind of heat through him for a brief moment, but he ignores it in favor of rolling his hips up and rubbing them against Minhyuk’s. “Shut up and fuck me.”

He can’t put his finger on what exactly is hot about how Minhyuk pulls back and frees Hyungwon of his pants, how he strips Hyungwon completely naked but stays in half a suit. He _looks_ hot, of course, in his black slacks with a visible bulge in the front and his dress shirt half unbuttoned, but there’s something else about it, something about Hyungwon being bare and Minhyuk being dressed, polar opposites of their personalities. Hyungwon has half a mind to shove the shirt off Minhyuk’s shoulders when he leans down to bite at his throat, but decides against it the second he feels the fabric on his naked skin, feels Minhyuk’s pants press against his rapidly hardening cock and his belt buckle poke into the soft skin underneath his navel.

Minhyuk drags his teeth down the side of his neck, then he first presses his lips to the spot right in the juncture of Hyungwon’s neck and shoulders, only to bite into it a second later, so hard that Hyungwon is sure it’s gonna bruise. He hisses softly, one hand flying up to grab Minhyuk’s hair, still soft despite all the bleaching (Hyungwon thinks he should ask for his conditioner later), but he doesn’t end up pulling him away. Minhyuk is sliding his tongue over the spot apologetically and rolls his hips against Hyungwon’s, dragging his pants over his cock in an agonizingly slow motion, so Hyungwon forgives him.

“I’m gonna get precum on your pants,” Hyungwon observes, a little breathless, as Minhyuk’s head travels down his sternum.

“Good,” Minhyuk just says, warm breath rushing over Hyungwon’s skin and making him shiver.

Hyungwon chuckles softly, his fingers now carding through Minhyuk’s hair while he watches him go further down. “Filthy,” he comments, right before his eyebrows shoot up because Minhyuk reaches behind himself to pull two foil packets from the back pocket of his slacks. “You had lube and a condom with you during that conference? _Filthy.”_

“Well, I knew you were gonna be there, so,” Minhyuk says, not looking up but rather getting busy with sucking a mark right underneath Hyungwon’s ribs.

And for a moment there, it gets worse again, so bad that Hyungwon has to press his eyes shut and focus on those lips on his skin, the shirt fabric beneath his legs, the feel of Minhyuk’s arms moving somewhere between them to rip the packages open, just to keep himself from thinking about it. Sleeping with Minhyuk was such routine, almost like brushing his teeth, like always remembering to bring their tickets to subway rides, they always remembered packing condoms when they had class together, and it felt superficial and banal back then, but only because Hyungwon refused to admit to himself how _good_ it was, how right it felt to share this with each other, this quiet thing behind closed doors, be it stress relief or pure fun. They had something good and he, right now, naked on this bed, regrets ever having put an end to it, but he didn’t have a choice, did he? They were never meant to be. Only being doomed from the start doesn’t stop him from missing it.

Hyungwon jolts when Minhyuk’s cool, slick fingertip circles his asshole. Quietly, Minhyuk apologizes, and Hyungwon just makes a vague dismissive hand gesture. He doesn’t quite know when his hand slipped from Minhyuk’s hair, but he’s too far away now, just out of reach, kneeling between his legs with one hand down between them and the other on Hyungwon’s bare thigh. Minhyuk pushes in and Hyungwon closes his eyes again, only relying on his body to feel his other hand ghost up his leg, Minhyuk’s breath close to his knee, warm and shallow. Soft lips press to his calf when he adds a second finger and Hyungwon instinctively rolls his hips down to welcome him, making himself moan and Minhyuk gasp from the sight alone. Hyungwon opens his eyes then and Minhyuk looks like a god, hair falling into his eyes, his chest half bare underneath the shirt sticking to his skin, one hand wrapped around Hyungwon’s ankle. He seems to glow even in the sparse light in the room and Hyungwon feels like all of this could be enough to make him cry if he didn’t have two fingers up his ass.

He almost tells him to stop because it’s enough and he doesn’t need much more of a stretch, but Minhyuk’s mouth is now working from his calf all the way down to his thigh, kissing and biting here and there, starting to leave marks once he’s past his knee, and Hyungwon’s leg jerks now and then when his teeth pull at his skin harshly, but mostly he’s just busy watching him. Minhyuk is still moving his fingers inside Hyungwon, but at the same time he seems so focused on his leg, his thigh, his skin, that fingering him just comes automatically. Hyungwon thinks his eyes are closed, like he’s doing everything he can to take the feeling in, memorize the way his thigh feels against his lips, his skin tastes on his tongue. Hyungwon has always loved this part of him, the moment when Lee Minhyuk shuts up and stops playing around and only focuses on this, only focuses on _him,_ those seconds or even minutes bordering on full-on body worship, always quietly reminding Hyungwon that he’s worth this, that he’s the most beautiful damn thing Minhyuk has ever held in his hands.

Gently, subtly, Hyungwon rolls his hips down again, enjoying the way Minhyuk’s groan vibrates against his inner thigh, but it seems to wake him up a little. Minhyuk pulls his fingers out and lets go of Hyungwon’s leg so he can finally undo his slacks, push them down just far enough to have his dick slap against his abdomen, fully hard and flushed dark. One of Hyungwon’s hands automatically grabs the bedspread.

“What’re you gonna do about the stain on your pants?” Hyungwon says hoarsely, because he’s pretty sure he did see something on his slacks there, and it feels better to tease than to say nothing at all right now.

Rolling on the condom, Minhyuk shrugs. “Gonna wear it with pride,” he says, and grins at Hyungwon when he looks up. “Tell people I had a little jack-off accident, ruin my reputation some. That sounds fun.”

Hyungwon fails to stop the giggle before it escapes his throat, but at least expertly ignores the flush going all the way down to his chest. “Just wear your tie really deep and loose, so it’ll cover it up,” he says while Minhyuk pushes Hyungwon’s knees even further apart and positions himself. “You’re gonna look like a clown, but it’s not like anyone will notice. You never knew how to dress yourself.”

“You take that back,” Minhyuk says, and then he pushes his tip past the rim, and Hyungwon gasps into his laugh, and it’s the most satisfying thing he’s felt in a while.

Minhyuk pushes in much slower than necessary while holding Hyungwon’s hips in a death grip that keeps him from speeding up the process, and it has Hyungwon whimpering breathlessly after a mere few inches. Minhyuk’s thumbs are rubbing over his hipbones almost soothingly, but the nails of his other fingers are digging into his skin, a dizzying mixture that’s making Hyungwon’s head swim. He pushes against Minhyuk’s backside with his feet, trying to shove him further in but Minhyuk holds against it, actually pushes back and pulls out again until only the head is still inside him, and Hyungwon groans loudly into the hot air above him.

“What do you want, Hyungwon?” Minhyuk asks him, and Hyungwon knows the collected, almost business-like tone of his voice is a fucking farce, but that only infuriates him more.

“I already told you to fuck me,” he spits, hands clawing at the bedspread so much he thinks he might actually be pulling it off the mattress in places.

“You weren’t being very nice about it,” Minhyuk says with a polite smile. He slides back in again, maybe halfway, waiting for Hyungwon’s thighs to quiver around his middle, then he pulls back once more. Hyungwon feels him tighten the grip on his hip and watches him lick his lips. “Beg.”

“Fuck you,” Hyungwon says. He knows he’ll lose, sooner or later. But if Minhyuk is obviously willing to draw this out, he’s going to take all the time they have here.

Minhyuk tuts, actually fucking tuts, and pulls out completely. Effortlessly, he untangles Hyungwon’s legs from around his sides, then he flips him over on the bed like a ragdoll, maneuvering him around until Hyungwon is on his knees and elbows, forehead resting against his arms, cursing softly into a pillow.

“I hate you,” he says, muffledly, unsure if Minhyuk even caught it. He seems pretty busy shoving his cock in between Hyungwon’s ass cheeks but not actually entering him.

“I could get off like this,” Minhyuk muses. “Forget the condom, spill all over your back and leave you here like that, unsatisfied and covered in cum. How does that sound? You want that?” When Hyungwon doesn’t say anything, Minhyuk pulls his dick away again, and he almost whines at the loss of heat on his ass, but Minhyuk’s hands are on both his cheeks almost immediately. They squeeze the flesh, kneading him for a few seconds until Hyungwon’s knees feel like they’re about to buckle, then he feels both of Minhyuk’s thumbs entering him, only to pull his hole apart. “Or do you want me here?”

Hyungwon feels himself clench around almost nothing, his muscles trying to work with Minhyuk’s thumbs, feels cold air on his ass and the want, the _need_ to have him inside, and whines into his pillow. When his hips buck backwards without him being able to stop himself, Hyungwon finally turns his head to the side to make his words more understandable, and closes his eyes. “Please,” he rasps. _“Please,_ Minhyuk, fuck me. Fuck--”

Minhyuk slides in to the hilt with one single thrust and Hyungwon realizes that the wait wasn’t exactly easy on him either. They both groan loudly, Minhyuk’s voice finally breaking around the edges, and when he pulls out and pushes himself back in, Hyungwon slams his hips back against him immediately.

The pace they both set is brutal from the very start. Hyungwon can hear Minhyuk’s belt buckle clinking every time he thrusts forwards and it’s making his head spin, an inexplicably hot accent to the slap of his ass against Minhyuk’s hip. Minhyuk’s hands are tight around his sides at first but they start to move sooner or later, one of them roaming up his back, scratching down to leave beautiful dark streaks right along his spine, then up again. Once his other hand finds Hyungwon’s throbbing cock, this one fists in his hair and pulls his head back, and Hyungwon releases a moan loud enough he thinks people on the street might have heard him.

Soon enough, Minhyuk slams into him with no rhythm but pure force and Hyungwon’s ass aches a little already, his knees ache, his elbows ache, but it’s nothing compared to how urgently his cock is hurting now. His hips jerk, bucking into Minhyuk’s hand and then back against his dick, and it finally makes Minhyuk move that hand right, pushing him closer to the edge with quick strokes, always timed right with his cock slamming into Hyungwon’s prostate. He sees stars, his climax barreling towards him before he really knows it, hitting him with full force as the world whites out for a few seconds.

He feels warmth spill from him, wave after wave wash over his entire body, his thighs quiver. Inside him, Minhyuk is still going, fast and hard, just on the verge of uncomfortable, and Hyungwon whines, but Minhyuk’s body goes rigid barely a second later. He comes with a hoarse groan and one hand still in Hyungwon’s hair, then he doubles over and blankets Hyungwon's body with his.

 _It's not cuddling,_ Hyungwon thinks, _we're not_ doing _anything._ He almost smiles at the thought, almost smiles at the memory of how he had grown to like feeling Minhyuk go soft inside him. It's a weird thing to be smiling about, but here they are, lying on top of each other and Minhyuk softening in his ass, and Hyungwon still likes it as much as he used to.

“You okay?” Minhyuk asks after a while. Hyungwon’s only answer is an unintelligible grunt, so Minhyuk chuckles and finally pulls out of him, climbing off the bed. Hyungwon is just trying to figure out how stupid it would be to fall asleep here when he hears the click of a pen, and feels Minhyuk grab his hand to scrawl something on it that feels a lot like a series of numbers.

“I know nothing’s changed,” Minhyuk says softly, refastening his pants from the sound of it, “but if anything ever does, you know how to find me.”

Hyungwon doesn’t say anything. When he forces himself to sit up and clean the cum off his stomach a minute later, he sees Minhyuk in the mirror, testing out if his tie really covers up the stain on his slacks.

  


He saves the number in his phone. It takes him a week to text it, noncommittal, just to let Minhyuk save his contact, nothing else. Minhyuk doesn’t press. Of course he doesn’t.

Hyungwon isn’t ready, for any of it. He isn’t ready to drop the mantle as head of clan and break his mother’s heart, not ready to tell Kihyun to take over for good, even if it’s all he wants. He isn’t ready to show up on Minhyuk’s doorstep either, because what the fuck is he gonna say? _I know it was me who said one of us would have to give up, so here I am, fucking my pride up the ass, giving up?_ Yeah, and then what? What does he even want from Minhyuk, a relationship? Something that normal and mundane, when they weren’t even capable of talking feelings back when they were in college and none of this mattered?

No, Minhyuk was capable. Hyungwon wasn’t. And he still isn’t.

He still tries to tell himself that all he’d want from Minhyuk is sex -- not the care, not the gentle hands before and afterwards, all his considerate questions, attentive looks, all that shit that almost made him feel like a boyfriend when Hyungwon just wanted a fucktoy. He doesn’t want it. All he wants is a good fuck now and then, and he doesn’t need Minhyuk for that, and if he doesn’t need him, then he doesn’t need to drop the clan either.

So he makes another attempt, another attempt to salvage it all, put his foot down and act as a leader, a boss. He lets Kihyun brief him on everything currently going on and then tries to make his own decisions, and when he does have time off, he goes out and he finds his good fucks somewhere else.

His okay fucks.

Mediocre fucks.

Some people take interest in him. Boys from gay clubs, girls from work, girls from clubs or boys from work. Some really try to get to know him, ask him questions, try to care. But it all feels wrong, and it’s so damn tiring. Sometimes Hyungwon wakes up next to someone in the morning who tries to initiate small talk with him, and then he barely listens to them talking about their family because he keeps thinking that with Minhyuk, he wouldn’t have to do this. Minhyuk already knows him, and Hyungwon knows Minhyuk. Maybe not inside and out, but, god, he knows him so much better than all of these people he doesn’t give a shit about.

Work is dull and he hates it. Off the top of his head, Hyungwon could list at least ten majors he would rather have, at least ten reasons to go back to college and do something he actually likes. But he knows he can’t, he can’t combine college and work again when it almost killed him last time.

Kihyun always looks like he’s in pain when he has to watch Hyungwon work, probably partly because he feels him suffer through it, but also partly because he knows he could do it so much better. Kihyun is so suited for the job, and he actually likes it, and Hyungwon wants nothing more than to give it to him. Not think about the consequences, not worry about what the rest would say, if they’d even accept Kihyun as the new head, because at this point, why wouldn’t they? If Hyungwon continues like this, he’ll plunge this whole business into ruin, and nobody wants that.

  


About three months after his relapse with Minhyuk (because that’s what it was), Hyungwon’s mother is officially declared blind. Her eyesight has been worsening steadily ever since her husband’s death, and now there’s not a pair of glasses in the world anymore that could help her see. She calls Hyungwon up to her house, sends the nurse that still cares for her outside for a bit, and tells Hyungwon that she’s finally going to take all her fingers out of the business, that it’s time for her to resign fully. And when Hyungwon carefully takes her hands in his and tells her that he’s been wanting to do the same, she smiles and squeezes his hands and says that she’s been hoping he would. She doesn’t want to see him this unhappy ever again, she says, and then she giggles about it, and Hyungwon tries to laugh a little, too.

Most clan members take the change in leadership pretty well. Kihyun says he deals with the ones who don’t, and Hyungwon doesn’t ask any further questions. One night Hoseok leans over to him on the couch, smelling like an entire cocktail, and tells him that sometimes Kihyun gives him a _fear boner._ He doesn’t ask any further questions about that, either.

  


Hyungwon is a free man now. When he’s not lounging around at home, looking at college brochures, or looking after his mother, he sleeps around some. Tries to put himself out there, be normal, fuck normal people.

 _Fuck_ normal people, though.

It takes him three bottles of soju and a very bad blowjob to text Minhyuk and ask him to meet up soon, whenever he’s free. Minhyuk doesn’t reply for a whole week, and when he does, it’s

_sorry, i got kidnapped lol_

and Hyungwon’s heart fucking plummets to the bottom of his skinny jeans, but he also can’t help but laugh out loud, because that’s so fucking Minhyuk, and that’s so much better than sleeping with people named Jeff who work in offices and drive a Ford Fiesta. Hyungwon doesn’t want this life for himself anymore, but he also can’t quite shake it completely, and Minhyuk is the perfect middle course. Minhyuk is perfect.

  


Minhyuk opens his penthouse apartment door to him two hours later, a band-aid over one of his eyebrows, a bruise on one of his beautiful cheekbones, but he smiles and lets Hyungwon in with a dramatic arm wave towards his huge living room. “That’s a nice level-up from your dorm room,” Hyungwon says as he strolls in and looks around. There are still books lying everywhere, though, and a Pokémon plushie is sitting on the couch like it’s watching TV.

“I know, right?” Minhyuk says behind him. Hyungwon turns around and he’s still smiling, hands in his pockets, looking at Hyungwon like he’s the most darling thing he’s ever seen. “So, I’ve had a couple of really wild weeks. What’d I miss?”

Hyungwon takes a breath, stops himself, looks him over more thoroughly. Then he says, “Are you okay?”

Minhyuk’s smile softens so much it almost makes him look like he’s melting. “Yeah,” he says gently. “I’m okay. My guys got me out. I’m pretty sure Hyunwoo actually broke someone’s entire back, and I barely even got harmed. But thank you for asking.”

It’s the least he could do, Hyungwon thinks, after all those years spent not asking.

“Okay,” he says, and decides to go back to his original plan and just tell Minhyuk. “Well, I’m leaving the clan and putting all responsibility in Yoo Kihyun’s hands.”

“Oh, he’s scary,” is the first thing Minhyuk says. Hyungwon laughs and nods, and then Minhyuk is staring at him, and he’s staring back. They both take a step forward at the same time, which makes them laugh again, and it’s awkward but good, and nothing in Hyungwon’s life has ever been that combination of adjectives.

He watches his own hands pick at Minhyuk’s sweater, because that’s easier than watching his face. After all, he’s already coming here and saying things out loud, and that’s hard enough for now. Baby steps, Hyungwon thinks. “I know it was me who said one of us would have to give up,” he says quietly, and then he bites his lip and grins, because he just looked up far enough to see Minhyuk’s lips, and they’re grinning too. “So here I am, fucking my pride up the ass. Giving up.”

One of Minhyuk’s hands rises up to card fingers through Hyungwon’s hair, and that does make him look up into his eyes. Minhyuk is still grinning, and there’s something so soft about it, it almost makes it seem like those bruises on his face aren’t actually there, or just bad makeup. “People are still gonna ask me really big questions if they ever see us together,” he says. Hyungwon shrugs.

“You walked around with a cum stain on your pants and they still trust you,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll deal.”

“Since when do you have so much faith in me?” Minhyuk laughs, and then he lets go of Hyungwon’s hair and reaches down instead, swiftly closing his arms around Hyungwon’s thighs just so he can lift him up like he weighs nothing, ignores Hyungwon’s embarrassing squeal as he claws up his shoulders for hold, and carries him off towards what he assumes will be a bedroom. “I know something else we could fuck up the ass.”

In truth, nobody gets fucked up the ass that night. Minhyuk wants to talk things through, and Hyungwon kind of wants to as well, but he sucks at it, so they make out in between. It’s how they find out that they’re good at compromising.

It boils down to a very simple plan: They’ll try.

And later, much later, when Minhyuk is upside down on Hyungwon’s couch, chatting with Kihyun about collaboration opportunities in business while Hoseok tries to help Hyungwon study for exams once more, he thinks that it was worth it. It’s always worth trying, he figures, and sometimes, it’s worth giving up, too.


End file.
